THE UNITED STATES 
IN 1899 



AN ADDRESS 

Delivered before the University of Pennsylvania 

February 22d, 1899 



BY 



SETH LOW 



HXCHANG*. 



THE UNITED STATES IN 1899. 



Mr. Provost, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

A century and a half ago, the College of Philadelphia and 
King's College in the Province of New York were both under 
discussion, but neither had yet been founded. The College 
of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania, was 
chartered in 1753, and King's College, now Columbia Univer- 
sity in the City of New York, in 1754. It is an interesting 
circumstance that the same man, the Rev. Samuel Johnson, 
S. T.D., of Connecticut, was invited by each of the young col- 
leges to become its first President. It would seem, therefore, 
as if the timber out of which college presidents are made was 
as scarce then as it appears to be to-day ! Why it was that 
Dr. Johnson, in the presence of such a tempting alternative, 
should have chosen to become the first President of King's 
College, I shall not attempt to say. The incident serves to 
show how closely the University of Pennsylvania and the 
University over which I have the honor to preside were re- 
lated in those early days. Within a decade of their founda- 
tion, both of them were represented in a joint attempt to 
secure funds in England for their common benefit. The 
original papers relating to this transaction are in your posses- 
sion. Our own records merely show that you are credited 
with a full and true accounting for our share of the funds so 
raised, about ^6,000. As we were thus closely associated in 
origin, so the history and development of the two universities 
has followed parallel lines. Each being located in an im- 
portant city, each illustrates the effect of a large city upon such 
an institution. So long as the city was small, these colleges 
rendered a service to the country at large second to no others. 
Their influence was as wide as the colonies. As the city 
closed about them, on the other hand, their patronage and 
their influence became chiefly local; because, as I suppose, 
their immediate surroundings were more important and there 
was less need and less opportunity to reach the country out- 
side. Few people from without were willing then, as com- 
paratively few are now, to send their sons to college, in a 
city, at the youthful age which ordinarily marks the begin- 
ning of college life. As the educational system of the country 
has developed, on the other hand, in the closing decades of 



2 The United States in /S'gp. 

the present century, demanding opportunities for advanced 
instruction not only in the professions but in all branches of 
learning, it has become evident that, for this class of work, 
the location in a great city is in itself a distinct advantage. 
Accordingly, during the last two decades, both the University 
of Pennsylvania and Columbia University have attained once 
more to a position of national influence such as they have not 
held for nearly a century. It seems probable that the tide 
which has thus begun to turn will Mow with increasing volume 
for many years to come, and it is not improbable that, even 
upon the college side of their work, these institutions, under 
the changed conditions of the country, may render a service 
in the future much more important than they have rendered 
in the past at any time since the early years of their founda- 
tion. This result is to be obtained, undoubtedly, by identify- 
ing the universities with the best activities of the city in which 
each is placed — not by attempting to hold the university aloof 
from the city's life. For the life apart, the country or the 
small city is still the better location. 

As our two universities have thus been closely associated 
in experience throughout their history, so there is an evident 
link between the cities of New York and Philadelphia in the 
history of the nation. The Government of the United States 
was established by the inauguration of Washington, as Presi- 
dent, in the City of New York in 1789. In the following 
year the Government was removed to Philadelphia, and was 
maintained here until it was moved again, in the year 1800, 
to the City of Washington, which was founded to be its 
abiding place. The City of Washington, in the District of 
Columbia, was founded in a district ceded to the Federal 
Government by the States of Maryland and Virginia in order 
that the capital of the country might be in territory directly 
under federal control. It is interesting to observe that the 
Federation of Australia, now in process of formation, has 
just adopted a similar arrangement for the solution of the 
same problem. The capital of the Australian Federation is 
to be established in New South Wales upon territory to be 
1 eded to the Federation and to be under its direct control. 
Thus the wisdom of our fathers, in this particular, is curiously 
instilled and illustrated a century after the fact. 

I recall that a year ago, in this place and on this occasion, 
we were listening to the earnest and patriotic words of Presi- 
dent McKinley. It was only one week after the unhappy 
destruction of the " Maine " in the harbor of Havana. What 
a page of our national history has been written since! The 
a< tion of the President in attending this celebration a year 



The United States hi i8gg. 3 

ago was characteristic of his attitude, as it seems to me, 
during the whole of that fateful Spring. Nothing that he 
could then have done would have contributed more impor- 
tantly to quieting the public mind, at that juncture, than his 
appearance here at such a moment to speak the calm and 
measured words which we had the pleasure of hearing. Only 
one who has tried to meet calmly such an occasion, with a 
great burden of anxiety resting upon his heart, can have the 
faintest conception of the mastery of self called for by such 
an undertaking. I like to think that at every crisis in our 
national history, so many of which have marked the interven- 
ing months, the nation has had the benefit of the same self- 
control, the same cool judgment, and the same utter devotion 
to the welfare of the country. It is not necessary to claim for 
the President entire freedom from mistakes in order to recog- 
nize in his general bearing a very high quality of leadership. 

The anxieties of the war are over, and the problems of 
peace resulting from the war are now upon us. No one who 
has lived through it can forget the exhilarating sense of grati- 
fied patriotism which marked the action of Congress and of 
people as the war came on. The enthusiastic response of the 
volunteers to the President's calls, the splendid valor displayed 
by our men on land and sea, the noble devotion of good 
women to the sick and wounded, all of these were as welcome 
as our victories except as our victories were themselves the 
fitting and natural reward of the qualities thus displayed. 
For these things show that the character of the nation, when 
thus tried in the fiery furnace of war, glowed with the bright- 
ness of pure and precious metal, and that the nation's capacity 
for self-sacrifice, in a large sense, is not less than it used to 
be. But this is not all. The mechanical skill and ready 
efficiency so characteristic of the American told with over- 
whelming effect in the overthrow of the enemy. This capacity 
to turn industrial effectiveness into efficiency in war, as the 
swift ocean steamers of the merchant marine take on them- 
selves, upon demand, the qualities of men-of-war, is evi- 
dence that warlike power sufficient for our need is developed 
in peace and by peace among a people that does not suffer 
itself to be dismayed by difficulties or weakened by luxury. 

I wish it could be also said that the American genius for 
organization and for business had displayed itself during the 
war to equal advantage. In the Navy it did. There was some- 
thing as admirable as its fighting in the way in which every- 
thing that it fell to the lot of the Navy to do, was done, 
quietly, without confusion and with absolute success. In the 
Army it did not. It must in all candor be admitted that the 



4 The United States in i8gg. 

task of the War Department was much the heavier. It had 
to multiply the army ten-fold, and it had to do quickly on a 
large scale what it had only been in the habit of doing slowly 
and on a small scale. But it is precisely under such circum- 
stances that genius shows; and we are obliged to admit that 
<>n the side of the War Department, the genius that has made 
our railroads the most effective in the world, the genius that 
is enabling our manufacturers to conquer the markets of the 
world, was not forthcoming. The Santiago campaign of the 
Army was splendidly and brilliantly successful, and if the 
war had lasted longer I dare say we should have had a better 
criterion than we have now by which to judge how much of 
the dreadful suffering in camp and in the field is inseparable 
from war at the very best. But the contrast between the 
work of the Navy Department and of the War Department is 
too great to be wholly explained away. It is as clear as the 
noonday sun that the organization of the War Department 
and of the Army is absolutely unfriendly to efficiency. The 
President's Commission of Investigation has pointed out some 
of the difficulties and has suggested some of the remedies. It 
remains for public opinion to see that these remedies, or others 
equally effective, are promptly enacted into law. I am glad 
that the President has appointed a Court of Enquiry to go to 
tin bottom of the grievous charges that have been made 
against the Commissary Department, for it is hideously in 
contrast with the self-sacrificing heroism of our troops that 
such charges can even be mooted, much less made by the 
Commanding General of the Army. Now that the enquiry 
has been ordered, the people may well await the finding with 
patience and with an open mind, as a people at once too great 
to do injustice even to a single one not known to be at fault and 
too earnest to permit any who may be proven guilty either of 
wrongdoing or of false charges to escape the blazing fury of 
their wrath. 

To some of our people, perhaps to many of them, the con- 
sequences to ourselves of this war with Spain seem more ter- 
rible than the dangers of the war itself. When patriots like 
Senator Hoar of Massachusetts and Senator Hale of Maine, 
not to speak of others, feel called upon to break away from 
their party and vote against the ratification of the Treaty of 
Peai '•, he must be a light-hearted man, indeed, who does not 
consider seriously the gravity of the decisions that have been 
m idr by those charged with authority by the American peo- 
ple to make precisely such decisions. I want to point out, if 
1 i an, why it seems to me that the decisions reached may be 



The United States in ffyp. 5 

accepted with a good heart, and to indicate some, at least, of 
the duties that flow from the ratification of the Treaty. 

A century ago, John Adams was President. Washington 
was still alive, enjoying at Mt. Vernon his well-earned retire- 
ment; and he had just given a new evidence of his unquench- 
able public spirit by accepting a commission as Lieutenant- 
General of the Army of the United States in view of a 
possible war with France, which was then feared. During 
the sessions of Congress held in your city the foundations 
were laid of the Navy of the United States whose achieve- 
ments and traditions have made its victories of last Summer 
appear to be only the natural continuation of its glorious 
past. Truxtun and Hull, Perry and Decatur, Farragut and 
Porter, seem to be only other ways of spelling the names of 
Dewey and of Sampson. 

During his presidency of eight years Washington had 
demonstrated the strength of the new government in various 
directions. He had avoided complications with revolution- 
ary France, despite the strong and natural popular sympathy 
with the country which had aided so importantly in winning 
our own independence; he had settled outstanding questions 
full of embarrassing possibilities, by a treaty with Great 
Britain which at the time was exceedingly unpopular; he 
had put down by force an armed insurrection; and he had 
inflicted summary punishment upon the Indians, who showed 
a disposition to harass our Western borders. 

The new government, therefore, by 1799, was fairly 
launched ; but already new dangers began to make their ap- 
pearance. The election of Thomas McKean as Governor of 
Pennsylvania in 1799 foreshadowed the triumph of Jefferson 
and the Republican or Democratic party of that day. In the 
eyes of the Federalists who had controlled the government 
from the start, this seemed like the beginning of the end. 
There is more than a little evidence that in the minds of 
some of them it seemed to forebode a civil war. All the time, 
the problem of slavery was embedded in the Constitution, 
unrecognized, indeed, in a certain sense, until 1820, but 
always there. In 1820 came the discussion which terminated 
for the moment in the Missouri Compromise. Like a thun- 
derbolt out of a clear sky, these discussions revealed the 
electricity in the air and suggested the coming storm. Then 
came nullification, and all the uneasy years attending the 
angry controversy about slavery; and, finally, attempted se- 
cession and the Civil War. Foreign wars with England in 
181 2, with Mexico in 1846, and with Spain in 1898, have 
tested the country in its capacity for combat against an out- 



6 The United States in tSpp, 

side foe; while wide-spread commercial panic and disaster in 
i 19, in 1837, 1857, 1873, and 1893, have tested the capacity 
of the people for self-control under circumstances of great 
domestic hardship and distress. 

It may fairly be said that no period of 20 years has passed 
thai has not brought the country face to face with some grave 
danger and up to some new test. Phillips Brooks once said 
that if a man believed that the country had escaped all the 
dangers which have confronted it only by a series of happy 
accidents, such a man would naturally be full of fear at every 
new peril that makes its appearance, because such a man 
never could tell when the country's luck might not change. 
If. on the other hand, said Dr. Brooks, a man believes that 
the country has overcome the dangers of the past because its 
political system is inherently sound, such an one faces every 
new peril with a courage born of the very dangers that have 
been overcome. 

It is in this spirit of well-grounded courage, I think, that 
the people of the United States should contemplate the situ- 
ation in which they find themselves placed, in 1899, by the 
Treaty of Peace with Spain. The advocates of ratification 
have been called imperialists and expansionists, and the treaty 
itself has been said to be in woeful contradiction with all we 
stand for as a nation. These are serious charges, and it 
behooves every man who loves his country to consider whether 
they are well made. Unless our treaty with Spain has been 
dictated by lust of empire, it is not fair to call those who ad- 
vocated it, imperialists; unless it has been dictated by lust of 
territory, it is not fair to call them expansionists; unless a 
better way can be shown by which peace could have been 
secured, it is not just to criticise the government for accept- 
ing even unwelcome obligations that the war has brought in 
its train. 

What then are the facts? The Congress of the United 
States, in demanding the withdrawal of Spain from Cuba, 
declared it to be the purpose of this country to secure free- 
dom for the Cubans. There is certainly neither imperialism 
nor expansion in those resolutions. Up to this hour, there 
is not an indication that the purpose of the country, as thus 
formulated by Congress, will not be lived up to both in the 
Letter and in the spirit. It is evident, therefore, that our im- 
perialism and our expansionism, if they exist at all, are by- 
products; they do not represent the heart's desire. But 
some one will say, " Why then did we demand the cession of 
Porto Rico and of the- Philippines? If the American people 
■ iic init imperialists and arc nol expansionists, why should we 



The United States in 1899. 7 

demand from Spain the cession of these islands?" The an- 
swer, it seems to me, is very simple, though it is not the 
same in both cases. If Spain had withdrawn from Cuba 
without war, she would undoubtedly be still in possession, so 
far as we are concerned, of both Porto Rico and the Philip- 
pines. The moment she compelled us to go to war in order 
to expel her from Cuba, it became evidently the dictate of 
good sense to make it impossible for future troubles to arise 
between us from similar causes by removing her from this 
hemisphere. She has been a difficult neighbor from the be- 
ginning. No one, I think, seriously criticises this decision. 

It is said, however, that in the Philippines, by reason of 
their distance and their population, the case is different. 
Undoubtedly it is, and therefore the answer is different. 
Evidently it would have been unwise to attempt any solu- 
tion of the Philippine problem which should place Span- 
ish and American civilization side by side in control of differ- 
ent parts of the Philippine group. That would have been 
deliberately to reproduce in the Eastern hemisphere the very 
conditions that had just led to conflict in the Antilles. It 
was inevitable, therefore, that either Spain or America must 
leave the Philippines. We had destroyed Spain's authority 
there, and had also destroyed her power to re-establish it. 
In no fair sense of the words, under these conditions, is it 
just to say that in determining to make peace by securing 
the cession of the Philippines the United States has been 
animated by either the lust of empire or the lust of territory. 

But some say that the islands should have been surren- 
dered to the natives under a joint protectorate. It is urged 
that our action, in demanding a cession of the Philippine 
Islands to ourselves, is comparable with what the action of 
France would have been if, at the end of the Revolutionary 
War, France had made peace with England by demanding 
the cession of England's American colonies to herself. Leav- 
ing out of account the fact that France had entered into 
formal alliance with the Colonists to aid them in securing in- 
dependence, it seems to me, rather, that the demand of those 
who seek a joint protectorate for the natives is like a demand 
on the part of France, had she made it, that England's colon- 
ies should be left to the Indians under a joint protectorate. 
It is impossible, in such affairs, to leave out of account the 
demonstrated capacity of a people for self-government. Un- 
doubtedly, the United States should, and undoubtedly we 
shall, give to the natives of the Philippines as great a meas- 
ure of self-government as they are capable of exercising; but 
we could not, in justice to civilization assume, in our treaty 



8 The United States in 1899. 

with Spain, a capacity for civilized government on the part 
of the natives which has never been shown to exist. It was 
the same Jefferson who wrote in our Declaration of Independ- 
ence that government ought to rest upon the consent of the 
governed and who argued for a strict construction of our 
national constitution, that purchased Louisiana from Napo- 
leon without the consent of the people sovereignty over whom 
was thus transferred to the United States; and also without anv 
other constitutional authority than that which has been exer- 
cised in connection with the cession of the Philippines. That 
is the difference between Jefferson the Statesman and Jeffer- 
son the Philosopher. The philosopher stated the ideal, 
which I believe to be the ideal of the American people to-day 
as fully as it always has been; but the statesman did a great 
service to his country and to civilization, by doing a wise 
thing at a fortunate moment, although, in doing it, he con- 
travened his own ideal. I freely admit that if the dilemma 
with which we have had to deal in the matter of the Philip- 
pines had been voluntarily and consciously sought, the out- 
come would have been discreditable to our good faith and 
alarming in its portent. Coming as it has, however, as an 
unintended result of a war with Spain having its origin in 
ilisturbances with Cuba, I believe the children have given the 
answer the fathers would have made in the like case. Unless 
civilization, under proper conditions, has a right to withhold 
control from barbarism and semi-barbarism and to substitute 
for either something better, our own national life rests upon 
inexcusable wrong to the aborigines whose land we have 
taken and for whose civilization, such as it was, we have sub- 
stituted our own. 

But others again say, that the American ideal is government 
" of the people, by the people and for the people," and that, 
however truly we may give to the Philippine Islands a govern- 
ment for the people, it will not be and cannot be, under our 
authority, a government of the people and by the people. Un- 
doubtedly in this aspect, also, the fact comes short of the ideal; 
but to say that, in the premises, we have no duty to civilization 
or to the Philippine Islanders is to claim that a self-governing 
Democracy, by its very nature, is incapable of serving other 
peoples except by its own example. I do not think so meanly 
oi Democracy. Yet I would not admit for a moment, even 
by implication, thai the service of the American Democracy 
to mankind has been hitherto anything less than a world ser- 
vice. I have no sympathy with any who speak with a certain 
air oi apology 0! America's isolation in the past. No nation 
ince the American Republic was founded has influenced the 



The United States in i8gg. 9 

history of all nations more importantly or more beneficially. 
Indirectly by its influence, and directly by its action, it has 
done more than any other country to substitute arbitration 
for war as a means of settling international disputes; while 
its general success as a self-governing nation, sincerely de- 
voted to the arts of peace, has given a profound impulse to 
democracy the world over. Neither do I believe that the 
short and successful war with Spain has changed the temper 
of our countrymen in a night. The equally successful war 
with Mexico produced no such result, and the inbred habit of 
a century is not so easily cast aside. Our mission, indeed, 
has been a world mission of the highest order. We have in- 
vited to our shores men of every European country and many 
others, to share with us in the development and civilization 
of a continent. Not even England's mission, with her colo- 
nies and dependencies scattered over the earth, has been more 
wide-reaching than ours. We have asked the people of 
the civilized world to join with us in developing a continent, 
and, in doing so, to learn with us the lessons and the art of 
self-government. We have also invited here the wealth of 
Christendom to take part in the development of our material 
resources. 

It is noticeable that in the same eventful year of 1898 that 
has burdened us with new duties to people across the sea, 
we have become for the first time a creditor nation lending 
vast sums of money to the people of Europe. It is a striking 
and suggestive coincidence that at the very moment when 
our relations to the civilized world have changed financially, 
the obligation of duty to outside peoples, less civilized than 
we are, seems also to have been laid upon us. It is as if a 
Voice that admits of no remonstrance had said to us, in the 
plenitude of our prosperity and power: " Hereafter you 
must heed the call to service both with men and with money, 
away from home as well as at home." Certainly the change 
in our political relations is not more striking than that which 
has taken place in the domain of finance. To me it seems 
an evidence of the soundness of heart of the American people 
that they have unflinchingly accepted the heavy burdens de- 
volved upon the nation by reason of the war with Spain; and 
I do not see in the acceptance of these burdens any unfaith- 
fulness to our past or to what we stand for among the nations 
of the earth. It is possible, but by no means sure, that our 
material interests will be benefitted by the course we have 
pursued. As I interpret the attitude of our people, they have 
taken up the task which seems to have been laid upon them, 
not stopping to question closely whether it will be advan- 



io The Unite J Stairs in 180Q, 

tageous to themselves or not, but determining to do it as best 
they <an. How heavy a burden it already is, how heavy it 
may yet be, is witnessed by the mournful echoes of the guns 
in the Philppines that tell of what it is to stand in the shoes 
of Spain in the eyes of a semi-barbarous people. 

But if they have taken it up as a burden, they are deter- 
mined no less to convert it into an opportunity, an oppor- 
tunity to render new service to mankind. 

In this discussion I have given no consideration to the con- 
stitutional questions involved, partly because, at best, these 
are matters of opinion, and no opinion that I might express 
would have any special value; and partly because the treaty 
with Spain has been ratified, so that we are already involved 
in whatever constitutional difficulties there are. There is no 
doubt that war with Spain has confronted us, both as to 
Porto Rico and the Philippines, to say nothing of Cuba, with 
questions that are wholly new to our experience. Without 
attempting to make any fine distinction between colonies and 
dependencies, some things are written upon this subject on 
the pages of history in letters of flame, to which we must not 
shut our eyes. England lost her American colonies, now the 
United States, because she attempted to control their trade in 
the interest of England. The mother country, having learned 
the lesson of this experience, has since become the great 
colonizing power of the world, because she has appreciated 
that colonies or dependencies, to be sources of strength, must 
be administered in their own interest. It is said that the 
Bourbons never learn from experience; and Spain has evi- 
dently lost her possessions in the Antilles and the Philippines 
because she has continued to do, down to this day, what 
caused the revolt of the American colonies from Great Britain 
in 1776. In other words, the colonies and dependencies of 
Spain have been places to be exploited in the interest of the 
mother country. The welfare of the colonies themselves has 
never been permitted to shape their policy or administration. 
It would be a ghastly act of folly, if, in the face of facts like 
these, we ourselves repeat with Porto Rico and the Philippines 
the mistakes which drove our own forefathers into revolution, 
and which have cost Spain her possessions in both the Wesl 
Indies and the East. It is not clear that we are wholly free 
from the danger of precisely this mistake; not that the mis- 
take is likely to be made deliberately and with malice afore- 
thought, but that it may be made thoughtlessly, simply 
be* ause the point of view, up to this time, has been wholly 
foreign to our vision. Our navigation laws, for instance, 
which confine the privileges of domestic commerce to vessels 



The United States in i8yg. 1 1 

carrying the American flag, have been already extended to 
Hawaii and to Porto Rico. Looking at these places as parts 
of American territory, the action is natural enough ; but if 
the policy be questioned from the point of view of Hawaii and 
of Porto Rico, it is by no means so clear that the policy is 
wise. Hawaii lies as far from our Western shores as Southamp- 
ton from New York. Porto Rico is half as far away. It is 
certainly a fair question for the inhabitants of Hawaii and of 
Porto Rico to ask what benefit they obtain from a policy 
which will arbitrarily confine their trade with this country 
to vessels carrying the flag of the United States. Our navi- 
gation laws have their origin in a conception of national 
advantage which affords justification for them from our own 
point of view; but I submit that the application of such laws 
to islands lying 1,500 miles and 3,000 miles away from our 
nearest port may wear a very different aspect to the inhab- 
itants of those islands from what it wears to us. 

Similarly, the tariff question is a question of vital impor- 
tance from the same point of view. These islands are not now 
manufacturing centers, nor are they very likely to become so. 
It is evident, therefore, that the tariff for the Philippines and 
the tariff for Porto Rico might easily be one thing, if framed 
from the point of view of the islands, or another thing if 
framed from the point of view of the United States. We 
ought not to forget, and I hope we shall not forget, that it 
was questions of this kind, — not precisely the same in form, 
but similar in tendency, — which led to our own revolution 
against Great Britain. I am sanguine enough to believe that, 
in the long run, our policy towards Porto Rico and the 
Philippines in these respects will be guided by the principles 
for which our own fathers contended; but there is undoubt- 
edly a momentary danger growing out of the fact that the 
whole question is entirely new to our habits of thought. It 
is not an easy thing for a nation which has consistently pur- 
sued for a hundred years a policy of self-development to put 
itself suddenly in the place of distant islands with whose 
interests it is really unacquainted in any fundamental sense 
of the word. 

The action of the President in sending a well constituted 
Commission to the Philippines to report upon these very sub- 
jects is worthy of the highest commendation. A similar Com- 
mission, equally well constituted, might do equally good 
service in acquainting us with the problems with which we 
have to deal in Porto Rico. The West Indian Islands seem 
so near that it is natural to think of them as part of the 
American continent, and indeed they are much closer to us 

LofC. 



i 2 The United Stat a in /<Vyy. 

in all their interests than are the Philippines. On the other 
hand, Porto Rico, measured by miles, is really far away, and 
its historic development is as different from ours as possible. 
Because it is so naturally a part of the American continent 
we are apt to think that we know all about it, whereas our 
true wisdom lies, I am sure, in endeavoring to acquaint our- 
selves with its needs in the most careful manner possible. 

In this connection, I am glad to emphasize a suggestion 
which President Gilman formulated a few months ago, that 
t he universities of the country can render service of the highest 
value by encouraging their advanced students to look into all 
of these questions. The thing to be feared at the hands of 
the American people, in these new relations, is not so much 
mistakes of the heart as mistakes of the head, — mistakes that 
will be made either because we fancy that we know what we 
do not know, or because it has not seemed worth while for us 
to take the trouble to learn. Therefore every contribution 
of knowledge that tends to the understanding of the problem 
will be most helpful, and in no quarter can we more hopefully 
look for such contributions than to the universities and to the 
investigations of their advanced students of history and eco- 
nomics. 

You will not imagine, I am sure, because I have emphasized 
first of all what seems to me a real danger in the situation, 
that I have any doubt as to the great service which the United 
States can do for the population of all of these islands, both 
in the West and in the East. We can give to them undoubt- 
edly many of the things that we ourselves value most highly. 
We can give to them free schools and free speech; freedom to 
worship God according to their own conscience; and equality 
before the law. We can give to them, if we will, the opportu- 
nities that are born of a stable government, justly and equi- 
tably administered; and certainly we can and we should de- 
velop everywhere the capacity for self-government up to the 
utmost limit of possibility. I have not the slightest doubt 
that these an- the things which the American people as a whole 
intend to do for these islands which have come so unexpect- 
edly under our influence. Neither have I any doubt that 
the most self-sacrificing efforts will be made by multitudes of 
our people to give both to Porto Rico and the Philippines, as 
well as to Cuba, of the very best that we have. 

It ought not to be forgotten, however, that it is one thing 
to intend to do a thing, and quite another thing to accom- 
plish it. I have not the slightest doubt that a people who 
have maintained Robert College in Constantinople tor so 

many years, the influence of which, in due time, undoubtedly 



The United States in i8gg. 13 

led to the freedom of Bulgaria and Roumania from the Turk- 
ish yoke, will carry the torch of education far and wide 
throughout these islands. I have equally little doubt that the 
spirit of our laws will be embodied in any legislative action 
that we may take with reference to these islands. The crit- 
ical question is, what sort of administration shall we provide 
during the period, whether it be long or short, in which we 
must be ourselves directly responsible for results. If we want 
instruction on an engineering subject we must go to an engi- 
neer; and if we want information on a question of commerce 
or of agriculture we must go to men who have made a care- 
ful study of the problems in business or farming about which 
we wish to know. Similarly, if we want to learn how to admin- 
ister colonies and dependencies wisely, we must study the 
methods of the one great power of modern times which has 
made a good record in this field of enterprise. We may indeed 
study also, and we should, the efforts of other countries in 
similar directions which have been less successful; for, by 
such a comparative study of the question, we shall be able to 
learn absolutely the conditions upon which success in these 
enterprises depends. Such a survey of the history of the 
colonies and dependencies of our time will lead us surely to 
one conclusion, — that if we are to do any real kindness to 
these distant people whose lot is now measurably identified 
with our own, and if we wish to avoid occasions for shame 
which will make us a by-word among the nations, we must 
develop a colonial service with permanency of tenure that will 
offer a life career to many of the talented and promising men 
of the land. No country in the world, not even England, I 
believe, abounds more richly in the material available for such 
a service; but you cannot obtain the services of such men 
unless you make the conditions of the service such as will 
attract them. The Supreme Court of the United States has 
always been able to command the services of many of the best 
legal minds in the country, — not because a position on the 
Bench of the Supreme Court pays a large salary, for it does 
not; but because of the honor of the position, because of its 
permanency of tenure, and because of its provision for old 
age. If you were to subtract from these conditions the per- 
manency of tenure, the quality of the Judges composing the 
Supreme Court of the United States would suffer a rapid and 
fatal deterioration. If you were to deduct both the perma- 
nency of tenure and the provision for old age, not even the 
high honor of the appointment could long secure the quality 
of service, even in this highest court of the nation, which we 
have enjoyed in the past. 



i i The Unite J States in 1899. 

Similarly, a colonial service that is constantly changing, 
and which offers no permanent career to young men of prom- 
ise who may embark upon it, is as sure to be a failure as any- 
thing can be. It is indeed one of the great drawbacks to the 
public service of the United States in any capacity, that it 
does not offer, under existing conditions, to young men who 
are inclined to follow it, a permanent career, simply upon the 
basis of good service to the public. Something may be learned 
even from Tammany Hall in this regard, which does offer 
permanency of opportunity, in one form or another, to those 
who are loyal to the organization. The difficulty is, in this 
case, that the permanency comes from loyalty to the organi- 
zation, not from efficient and loyal service to the common- 
wealth. Tammany also demands for its own service peculiar 
efficiency and skill. Some day the people will realize that 
they cannot afford to be less careful of their own interests 
than Tammany is of its own. When this day comes the 
people will not only create but sustain, in all departments of 
the public service, a system that will make it worth while for 
young men of promise to enter into the service of the State 
and of the community with the expectation of making that 
their life work. It must be made their life work upon con- 
ditions, also, that make permanency of tenure depend on 
service to the public, not upon service to any political organi- 
zation less comprehensive than the public. Unless we can 
do this for our colonies, we shall add only one more failure 
to the melancholy history of colonial enterprise. If we do it 
for our colonies, we may well hope that the demonstrated ad- 
vantage of it will tend to elevate and improve our own civil 
service at home. 

Looking out upon the country at the present time, we must 
thankfully recognize that we are passing through an era of 
almost unexampled prosperity. Our arms have been crowned 
with brilliant victory both on sea and land in our recent war 
with Spain; and our trade and industry, as shown by the 
phenomenal record of exports and of imports, have won almost 
as decisive victories in all the markets of the world. In con- 
templation of these peaceful achievements, one may indeed 
exclaim, " Peace hath her victories no less renowned than 
War." Such a moment is a moment of great opportunity 
and of peculiar danger. The danger is that the ideal life of 
the nation shall suffer hurt in the presenceof such abounding 
prosperity. If it is hard for a rich man to enter into the king- 
dom of God, it is no less hard for a rich nation. It is pleas- 
ant, when wealth increases, to strive for more wealth ; and it 
is easy, in the midst of plenty, to leave the hard tasks of the 



The United States in 1899. 15 

world to others. In this light I think we may well be grate- 
ful, rather than disturbed that, at a time when our material 
prosperity is so conspicuous, there should have been laid upon 
our shoulders some of the burdens of the world that our 
brothers across the sea have been carrying in the effort to im- 
prove and elevate the civilization of the race. It may well be 
true, in the Providence of God, that this young nation, in- 
habiting a continent, which has so far mastered its material 
environment as to become a creditor nation, must owe return 
in service as well as money, directly as well as indirectly, to 
the cause of civilization throughout the world. I plead espe- 
cially with the young men at a time like this to keep bright 
their high ideals; to be willing to serve society and the State 
as Washington did, unselfishly, and not to permit themselves 
to be warped by any allurement of wealth from this ideal 
service. If there be, also, here men who are wealthy as well 
as young, I beg them to consecrate wealth and life alike to 
this ideal service. The country at home and abroad needs 
such service in a thousand forms. 

" Then, welcome each rebuff 

That turns earth's smoothness rough, 

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go! 

Be our joys three parts pain! 

Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; 

Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the throe!" 



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